


ad aeternum

by alethiometry



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Heaven, Recreational Drug Use, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 15:41:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5133050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alethiometry/pseuds/alethiometry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jess waits for Sam where she hopes he'll find her someday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ad aeternum

If Jess had to venture a guess, she would have said that Heaven didn’t actually exist. It was more a state of blissful consciousness, she figured, assuming consciousness existed after death. She’d written an entire term paper on it for Philosophy of the Person, way back in sophomore year, so she’d know.

Her mother’s side of the family had been scandalized when she brought it up over Easter brunch, but it wasn’t like they’d be able to counter any arguments Jess threw their way; by the very fact that they were all sitting there that Sunday, none of them had any firsthand experience. It was a moot point, but Jess sometimes had a mildly sadistic streak that enjoyed stirring up shit just for the sake of stirring up shit.

(“That’s my girl,” her dad would have said, if he wasn’t busy stuffing his face with forkfuls of honeyed ham to hide his amusement.)

What Jess could never admit to poor Grandma Katharine was that she had written the entire thing when she was high as a damn kite. Say what you will about new-wave Palo Alto hippies — they’ve got good weed.

She edited the paper when she was sober, anyway. No one was any the wiser.

Still, even her stoner Heaven theory was better thought out than this. (And she’d gotten a solid B+ on the paper, by the way. Which was more than she could have hoped for, considering she’d spent most of that semester staring at Sam Winchester’s hands as he jotted down notes across the room. Circular seating arrangements didn’t always suck.) At least she’d found some sort of logical basis for her theory. This, though? It was like every cheesy Hallmark commercial played all the goddamn time.

Walk twenty paces down the sidewalk? There’s that white Christmas you spent with Cousin Jamie’s family in Toronto. It was the first time you ever saw snow! How quaint!

Cross the street and duck behind the forest? Look, it’s the creek in Big Sur where Dad made you a shitty little fishing rod out of branches and twine so your chubby five-year-old self could wave it around in the water pretending to catch yourself dinner.

Sometimes she wondered how her parents were doing. Sometimes it still hurt to hear her mom call her “sweetie” and pick leaves out of her hair.

Across the creek the forest opened onto a beach and yeah, okay, this one wasn’t half bad. The bonfire was still going and even from a distance she could see Luis’ silhouette as he waved his arms around and regaled their little group with ghost stories. She could join them, maybe, but at a distance their words faded into background chatter and the sky was an eternal half-dusk purple and she could sit and listen to the waves crash and roll. It was her second-favorite place to be and she’d spent — a certain amount of time here, probably.

Time didn’t exist in Heaven. Or, at least, she didn’t notice its passage with the acuity that she had when she was alive. She’d spent quite a while lounging around her empty apartment and the clock on her laptop always read November 2nd, 2005. She knew the significance of the date, but it didn’t bother her as much as it probably should have.

The Internet worked, and it was fast as hell. One of the perks of being dead, Jess supposed, and didn’t spent too much time looking for a router or worrying about the logistics of divine Wi-Fi. Gift horses, mouths, et cetera. She couldn’t interact with anyone or comment on any message boards or upload pictures from her hard drive — which was disappointing, really. Posting cryptic comments on ghost-sighting YouTube videos from a metaphysical IP address had sounded like a lot of fun. But at least — God? Jesus? Santa? — kept up with the technology. Nyan Cat was fucking awesome.

At some point she got her (metaphysical? digital?) hands on a PDF of the seventh Harry Potter book. She read it all in one sitting, bundled up in one of Sam’s old sweaters, and sobbed snotty tears all over the sleeves when Hedwig died.

She wondered if Sam had ever finished the books, wherever he was now.

Sometimes when she closed her eyes she could still see his face frozen in horror on their bed, could feel the blood dripping out of her stomach and the flames exploding across her back. But the memory had quickly receded to the back of her mind, and there wasn’t much she could do but push it away and focus on this afterlife. At least she was able to change out of the damn nightgown.

She missed Sam almost as much as she missed her parents, but at least they featured in plenty of her memories. Sam wasn’t — anywhere. Not at the beach bonfire laughing at Luis’ scary stories, and certainly not in their apartment. She’d even sat for a few eternities in their spot by the campus art museum, waiting for him to meet her there with two coffees and as many fruits and prepackaged sandwiches he could feasibly smuggle out of the dining halls.

He never showed.

She hoped Sam’s absence meant that she would see the real thing again, one day. That she would hear the key scraping gently in the front door lock and he would be home, tall and smiling and warm. And then she would pull him into bed with her and hold him close and he would tell her between kisses everything that had happened with his brother and father that weekend, and after that as well. And after they’d spent forever and then some making out or screwing like bunnies or even just talking, she would happen to glance at her laptop clock again, and it would finally read November 3rd.

Jess pulled another fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies from the oven (no calories in Heaven!), and waited.


End file.
